Barack Obama: No U.S. ‘military excursion’ to come in Ukraine

President Barack Obama has ruled out U.S. military engagement with Russia over Ukraine, arguing Wednesday that it “would not be appropriate,” or good for Ukraine, for the two powers to use force to work out the conflict.

“We are not going to be getting into a military excursion in Ukraine,” the president said in an interview with NBC’s San Diego affiliate, KNSD, one of several he did Wednesday. “What we are going to do is mobilize all of our diplomatic resources to make sure that we’ve got a strong international coalition that sends a clear message, which is that Ukraine should decide their destiny.”

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“There is a better path, but I think even the Ukrainians would acknowledge that for us to engage Russia militarily would not be appropriate, and would not be good for Ukraine either,” the president said.

Obama said that he sees Russian President Vladimir Putin acting “out of weakness, not out of strength” in attempting to take control of Crimea. Putin, the president said, is “not comfortable” with former members of the Soviet Union making moves to align themselves with the West.

In another interview, with St. Louis NBC affiliate KSDK, Obama also said that a military option is not on the table.

“Obviously, you know, we do not need to trigger an actual war with Russia,” he said. “The Ukrainians don’t want that. Nobody would want that.”

At this point, “one of the most important things we can do” is for Congress to pass a bill providing aid to Ukraine, he said, “at a time when they have an economic crisis to go along with this political crisis.”